


those who wander

by kittpurrson



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Enchanted Forest, Bunnies, First Kiss, M/M, filmmaker!Even, forest spirit!Isak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 09:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11666763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittpurrson/pseuds/kittpurrson
Summary: The day the human wanders into Isak’s land, he feels it like a bruise.





	those who wander

**Author's Note:**

  * For [colazitron](https://archiveofourown.org/users/colazitron/gifts).



> Happy, happy birthday to my dear darling **colazitron.** This tiny little thing is for you.

The day the human wanders into Isak’s land, he feels it like a bruise--the press of rubber onto his damp soil, the humming of an unfamiliar melody blown about by the breeze between the trees.

It’s springtime, and Isak is holding Grey on his lap, petting her soft ears and whispering sweet things to her. She’s getting big, swollen with life, and the bunnies will be coming any day now. Isak won’t forgive himself if he misses it, but still--a human.

Isak strokes Grey once more, and then gently puts her on the ground. She sniffs at his hand just once before hopping away, slow but steady through the grass. It will guide her home safely, because Isak wills it so, but he still feels a little guilty.

Nonetheless, he stands. He closes his eyes until he can picture the exact place the human is standing.

By the pond, where Isak bathes sometimes, on the edge of Isak’s land--bordering the darker forests occupied by Linn. Isak doesn’t dare to get too close to that border, unless it is summertime. The land too often smells like campfires and smoke.  

Perhaps Linn is the reason Noora tells him that his fascination with humans will get him hurt, one day. Isak has heard it too many times, but he still can’t help himself.

Noora is right, of course. Before last winter came, Isak had spent three cycles of the moon bereft when the beautiful boy with the dark curls had gone home, packing up his canvas tent and stubbing out little bits of ash on Isak’s precious ground. He hadn’t realized it burned--had probably not realized what Isak was, even, for all that he’d invited Isak to share his meal and talk about his sorrows.

Isak didn’t know what an Eva was, but he hadn’t forgiven it for making Jonas sad. He’d barely forgiven Jonas, either, for not giving his heart in return for Isak’s.

Since then, there have been no humans in Isak’s part of the forest. He’d promised Noora and Eskild, before, that after Jonas he would look out for himself.

But the boy is circling the land, and Isak feels the weight of him like an itch he needs to scratch.

Isak’s curiosity gets the better of him, and he finds himself running for the pond, through the lush grass and the flowers that part to guide him. 

When he’s only a few strides away, he hides himself behind a tree and watches, suddenly shy.

See, Isak had thought that Jonas was beautiful... but this boy has him beat.

If Isak didn’t know better, he’d think this boy was elven, too. Tall and pale and so vital, full of energy, that Isak would think it were magic, if not for the scent of remembered iron in the air where the boy has been walking.

He’s singing to himself, a deep rumble that makes the air about him shiver in supplication. It’s Isak’s forest, so this makes sense-- as does the way even the still pond begins to ripple as if disturbed, the softest waves slopping in the boy’s direction. The boy is beautiful, and so Isak’s forest is infatuated with him, leaning in as Isak does to get a better view...

A twig cracks beneath Isak’s bare feet, and the boy’s head whips around.

Caught, Isak steps forward. 

He shouldn’t, he knows; he has given in far too easily. Letting himself be seen is dangerous: a privilege that should have been earned. 

But Isak really wants this boy to see him.

It’s only when the human’s eyes linger on his head that Isak realises he’s still wearing his crown--the golden laurels Eskild had placed on him the night before, telling him  _ you should be pretty, Isak.  _

He doesn’t know what he’s more self-conscious about: the leaves, or the fact that the clothes he’s wearing are human, stolen from the campsite across the stream where he sometimes goes of an evening, to hear their music and sigh at their companionship. 

_ You grumpy thing,  _ Eskild had said last night.  _ Come let me dress you, and make you beautiful.  _ Isak hadn’t acquiesced. Instead he is wearing the softest red fabric, dirt-stained and baggy, and something coarse and blue to cover his legs, except for the inexplicable holes at his knees. Even’s own clothes are similar, but clean, the hood covering his head sharply black.

Isak wishes, now, that he were more presentable. Looked less like he’d been rolling around on the floor, restless, unused to being awake after a long winter of hibernation.

It had been a particularly bad one, full of warm snaps that jolted Isak from his sleep. He had spent many a night surrounded by his creatures, unable to stop himself from shivering and unable to close his eyes.

The forest itself had shivered with him.

“Hello,” the boy says, and Isak sighs. His speaking voice is deeper than Isak had expected, rough like he hasn’t used it in a while.

Isak’s voice is less beautiful, he’s sure of it.

“Well met,” Isak says, and the boy twists his mouth in a way that Isak doesn’t recognize. “What are you doing here?”

The boy holds up his hands, and it’s then that Isak notices the Thing he is carrying. It’s some sort of black box contraption, held to the boy’s hand with a strap.

“Oh, I’m filming,” the boy says, his eyes bright. He lifts the thing up to point at Isak, and Isak jumps back in fear--perhaps he should have expected danger, after all. 

“Sorry,” the boy says, then, lowering it once more. He frowns, stepping back slowly, like Eskild last summer when the deer had developed a fear of his singing, bolting every time he came near. “Are you camera shy?”

“Camera shy?” Isak tries the words out, but he doesn’t know what they mean. 

He wants the boy to explain, though, even if just to hear more of his voice. 

Now that Isak sees him in the flesh, the press of his feet feels less like a wound, and more like a caress. A hand resting on his shoulder, a constant pressure of reassurance. He notices how the plants turn themselves to face the stranger, now, how the rabbits are hopping curiously close, like Isak’s own awe is filling them all.

The boy gestures to the Thing, and Isak understands, a little. 

“Will you show me it?” He asks, and the boy’s face breaks into a grin. 

It takes little effort for Isak to cross the last few strides that separate them, to take the contraption from the boy’s hands as he fiddles with it. The boy presses buttons with deft thumbs, before finally raising it up for Isak to look.

He gasps.

There, in colour, he sees his forest on a piece of glass: moving pictures of the lush green emerging from white frost. It’s like magic. Isak has never seen his forest like this before, in the depth of wintertime, enveloped in white. But this boy clearly has, and the thought makes Isak’s breath catch: that while Isak slept, this boy walked over him, marked his very veins with his presence.

“Oh,” Isak says, finally, and the boy smiles, bright like morning sun.

“I’m Even,” he says, and Isak takes it into his heart, imagines the paths of dandelions growing to form the shape of the word. Feels them budding, already, like the blooming feeling in his chest. 

“What’s your name?” Even asks, and Isak frowns. 

Perhaps, he realizes, this boy does not know what he is. Does not know that he cannot just ask for something, without getting something in return.

“I know what you are,” Even says, eyes steady and blue. 

Isak hesitates. He doesn’t know if it’s brave or foolish, then, for Even to have asked a favour of him.

“What will you give me in return?” Isak asks, and Even smiles.

He steps towards Isak again, and the forest trembles with anticipation.

“I showed you the film,” Even says, a smile on his face. “Does that not count?”

“I did not ask for it,” Isak tells him, and watches the dawning comprehension on Even’s face, then something like amusement. It looks good on him, Isak thinks. Everything looks good on him.

“How about,” Even says, slowly. “If you tell me your name, I will come back tomorrow, with another hoodie.”

He gestures to Isak’s clothes, and--oh. Isak turns away, for a moment, embarrassed. 

Even a human, it seems, knows that Isak shouldn’t be the way he is. Shouldn’t be so fascinated by something he will never truly have, or be.

“No,” he says, his heart in his throat. Even’s eyes look sadder, now, and Isak looks away. The water of the pond ripples once more, then stills, a heaviness falling over the air that Isak can only imagine is his own fault.

It was like this for the whole Autumn, after Jonas left. The air thick as mud, and the mud hard as rock.

“Perhaps I can give you something else,” the boy says softly, and Isak looks up.

The boy steps forward and presses his mouth to Isak’s in a sweet kiss, and the entire forest sighs with him as he pushes back, eager, at the new sensation. How it fills him down to his toes with joy, the way magic does, how it makes his heart race and his skin prickle. The boy presses his palms to Isak’s cheeks and Isak feels them heat up, but doesn’t care--all he can do is kiss back, tentatively opening his mouth to welcome Even’s probing tongue.

Isak has never felt like this before, and it’s terrifying. Exhilarating, but terrifying.

Even pulls back, eventually, and Isak closes his eyes as he says his own name aloud, for the first time since Jonas gave it to him. 

For a moment, Even’s face lights up, and then Isak panics.

He spirits away before he can see the look on the boy’s face, and spill all of his secrets in exchange for the boy’s favour.

He would do it. He already knows that--and that’s what’s dangerous about it.

He feels it when Even finally leaves, trailing off his land into Linn’s with slow footsteps that Isak feels like the heartbeat inside his chest. The trees have turned against him, Isak realizes, when they begin to whisper Even’s name in his ears, urging him to follow, to kiss him again, to take all of the happiness he can from the boy’s pink mouth.

And Isak wants to. He will, he tells himself, if he gets another chance.

He just doesn’t know what to give in return.

\- 

Seven days later, Isak tears himself away from Grey’s newborns long enough to find the soft material beside the pond, the black fabric carefully folded. When he brings it to his face to inhale, it smells of Even, and Isak hurries to pull it over his head, shoving his hands into the pockets.

A piece of paper crinkles inside, and he pulls it out.

On the paper is a drawing: a boy with leaves in his hair, holding hands with a boy with a camera around his neck.

_ For Isak, freely given,  _ the message says.

The forest grows bright with his smile.


End file.
